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Alabama Hispanic students not coming back

Hundreds of Hispanic students are still missing from the state’s public school system. |
Reuters
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Even though the appeals court ruling pulled back some of the law’s most controversial provisions, including those that forced schools to check students’ papers and mandated immigrants to carry documents at all times, Baronich said it has not been enough to roll back the fear that have permeated the Hispanic community.

“There’s anxieties that go with the law which are still not resolved,” she said. “[One mother] said she felt like she couldn’t be an adequate parent because she couldn’t drive her kids to soccer or ballet, because a part of the law that is still in place requires that if you drive without a license, you can be detained, instead of just getting a ticket.”

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Still, a few hundred absences in a state that has an estimated 35,000 Hispanic students is relatively small – certainly far less noticeable than the thousands of Hispanic students that didn’t show up in school at the end of September – and education officials in some counties say they have hardly noticed any lingering effects.

“I do understand a lot of communities have seen big changes – we just have not been one of them,” said Philip Baker, the Tallapoosa County Board of Education’s superintendent. “Here, I just feel really good about our administrators, who are doing a great job of trying to communicate with kids and parents to put their minds at ease.”

Some conservative members of Congress said they don’t care about the high Hispanic absentee rate, as long the number of illegal immigrants in the state continues to drop.

“Illegal aliens are continuing to leave Alabama — not as fast as we would want, not as many as we would want — but still they’re leaving and it makes us happy,” Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) told POLITICO.

Asked about the hundreds of Hispanic students that seem to have fled the state, Brooks said he was not bothered by those figures.

“That doesn’t make any difference to me. What matters is whether illegal aliens are consuming our scarce education tax dollars,” he said. “Parents who are in the United States illegally have an obligation to take care of their kids as they feel best and I defer it to their judgment on how best to take care of their children.”

Great job, cleaning up the schools and reducing class s. Crime should go down as well as taxpayer handouts.

Tag and deport all illegals.

Nobody should expect this admin to side with the American people since this admin is arming the drug cartels to murder people. Not to mention that Obama's own relatives are illegal immigrants living on taxpayer handouts. What a great leader.

When societies undergo stress and social tension rises, societies select a scapegoat to push all their fears & anxieties onto. It's what Hitler did to the Jews and what Mo Brooks and his Alabama cronies are doing to Hispanics. Hope you guys are proud. Bringin' back the good ol' days of segregation!

if i were an hispanic legal immigrant living in alabama, i would leave the state out of principle. people should not put up with being unfairly profiled. my feeling may be an exception, but i just have a hard time believing that anyone would ever want to feel like a second-class citizen in their home state.

I'd rather all the crops in Alabama and Georgia rot before letting another illegal pick one more iota of any vegetable matter for profit. KICK 'EM ALL OUT!!!! I CAN PAY MORE FOR IMPORTED FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They aren't. The problem with that argument is that it is not actually in line with recent state crackdowns on illegal immigration. The law requires schools to verify the status of every student. Every black, white, hispanic, and asian student is to present a birth certificate or other documentation verifying status. There is no profiling. It is an unbiased method to track the number of students receiving an education paid for by American citizens that are not in the country legally. Teaching kids costs money, and it is Alabama's right (I would even say responsibility) to understand how much they spend educating illegal immigrants. Yes, this will impact hispanic students more because they make up the vast majority of the illegal immigrant population.

It's about time everyone quit complaining about profiling and acknowledge the facts. The illegal immigrant population in the United States is mostly hispanic. That's a fact. So of course cracking down on illegal immigrants will affect hispanics more than any other ethnicity. It's about time we, as a country, quit with the political correctness and say it like it is. Good grief, when did everyone become so dang sensitive?

When societies undergo stress and social tension rises, societies select a scapegoat to push all their fears & anxieties onto. It's what Hitler did to the Jews and what Mo Brooks and his Alabama cronies are doing to Hispanics. Hope you guys are proud. Bringin' back the good ol' days of segregation!

Segregation? You really are a loon. We want our laws upheld. We want our border sealed. We don't want to pay for illegal immigrants in our schools, in our hospitals, in our subsidized housing, at our food banks. We don't have the money any more to do that. We need to cut spending and waste and fraud. Where's the problem?

When societies undergo stress and social tension rises, societies select a scapegoat to push all their fears & anxieties onto. It's what Hitler did to the Jews and what Mo Brooks and his Alabama cronies are doing to Hispanics. Hope you guys are proud. Bringin' back the good ol' days of segregation!